Type of statement

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Statement types or statement types are classification categories that some approaches in the philosophy of language and linguistics elaborate in order to differentiate between types of linguistic utterances and their content. A well-known example is the distinction between descriptive ( descriptive ), prescriptive ( prescriptive ) and normative ( evaluative ) sentences. On such distinctions took z. B. Debates about the demand for value freedom from sciences (see also value judgment ), or about the deducibility of "ought-statements" from "being statements" (see also Hume's law ).

Descriptive statements

Statements within an empirical science usually provide the description of a fact or an observation report ( protocol sentence ) about it. Following the predicate logic, these statements can be formally represented as the assignment of features to an object.

If the scope of a statement is limited in space and time, one speaks of a "singular statement".

If one restricts oneself to a "rhapsodistic" stringing together of individual incidents, one would basically get by with statements of this kind. For a methodology like historicism , which denies the existence of theoretical knowledge in the field of human history, the knowledge of the historically unique is the focus of the efforts of a social scientist (or humanities scholar ).

Explicit statements

Explicative statements serve as an explanation (explanation). For this you need legal statements (nomological hypotheses); their systematic connection takes place in a theory .

A logical reconstruction of the explanatory procedure is available in the Hempel-Oppenheim scheme .

The empirical verification of nomological hypotheses and the related theories is carried out by attempting to falsify them, ideally in an empirical experiment.

Since the protocol sentences that would be able to falsify a theory are normally not formulated and measured completely independently of the same theory, it is necessary to confront each theory with alternative theories in a systematic comparison of theories .

Normative statement

According to Hans Albert , prescriptive language is used in science in addition to descriptive language. Within the prescriptive language, the following types of statements are irrelevant or immaterial for science in use: resolutive statements (express the decisions of people); optional statements (express wishes of a person); valuative statements (express a person's opinion); performative statements (are part of a completed action); imperative statements (prescribe certain people a certain behavior).

The problem of value judgment is actually only raised by the "normative statements". Albert prefers this term to the conventional "value judgment" because it relates to actions. These are statements that declare certain types of behavior (statements, decisions, actions) to be justified.

Albert sees a particular danger in the implicit, hidden ("crypto-normative") and surreptitious value judgments.

Ultimately, he tries to prove that empirical science can do without normative statements, even when it comes to questions of scientific advice or the technological application of scientific theories.

Evaluation and criticism

The distinction between types of statements has performed an essential function in the philosophy of science and the methodology of the sciences. Such is the type of normative statement on the question of freedom from values, i.e. H. what role value judgments should play in the sciences. The question arises, however, whether the differentiation of the types of statements based on their "logical grammar" (Hans Albert) is sufficiently precise and guaranteed in all cases.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Karl-Dieter Opp: Methodology of the Social Sciences. Introduction to problems of theorising. Rowohlt, 1972, ISBN 3-499-55339-2 , p. 19.
  2. ↑ RM Hare: The language of morals. New edition. Oxford University Press, 1991, ISBN 0-19-881077-6 , p. 1.
  3. ↑ Hans Albert: Value freedom as a methodological principle. On the question of the need for a normative social science. In: Ernst Topitsch (Ed.): Logic of the social sciences. Cologne / Berlin 1967, p. 202, note 3.
  4. ↑ Hans Albert: Value freedom as a methodological principle. On the question of the need for a normative social science. In: Ernst Topitsch (Ed.): Logic of the social sciences. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne / Berlin 1965, p. 183f.
  5. ↑ Hans Albert: Value freedom as a methodological principle. On the question of the need for a normative social science. In: Ernst Topitsch (Ed.): Logic of the social sciences. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne / Berlin 1965, p. 182.
  6. ↑ Hans Albert: Value freedom as a methodological principle. On the question of the need for a normative social science. In: Ernst Topitsch, (Ed.): Logic of the social sciences. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne / Berlin 1965, pp. 195ff.

literature

  • Hans Albert : The problem of value judgments in the light of logical analysis. In: Journal for the entire political science. 112 (1), 1956, pp. 410-439.
  • Richard Mervyn Hare : The Language of Morals. Translated from the English by Petra von Morstein. 1st edition. Suhrkamp, ​​1972, DNB 720167507 .
  • Karl-Dieter Opp: Methodology of the Social Sciences. Introduction to problems of theorising. Rowohlt, 1972, ISBN 3-499-55339-2 .
  • Ernst Topitsch (ed.): Logic of the social sciences. 4th edition. Cologne / Berlin 1967.
  • Dietmar von der Pfordten: description, evaluation, prescription. Trialism and trifunctionalism as the linguistic foundations of ethics and law. (= Writings on legal theory. 155). Dissertation . Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1993, ISBN 3-428-07698-2 .